Ben from Church of the Customer, an early member of the Industry Blog Index at my Success Blogging site, has written an open letter to movie theatre owners in an attempt to stop them from forcing us to watch commercials.  Its a nice thought, but its not going to happen unless we walk with our feet.  How about a comprimise?  Why not but real commercials before the movie starts, instead of those silly movie quizes and actor name jumbles.  For the most part, we all get into our seats at least 10 minutes before the movie starts anyway.  At least then we don't feel ripped off because we know we're there early, so we don't feel like we're paying to watch commercials.  In fact, you could sell 15 minutes straight of commericals, with each slot getting more expensive as it gets closer to the movie.  In Manhatten, for example, people are in their seats by at least a 1/2 hour before big movies and we just sit there watching the same "Who said that?" ad four times.  I don't blame movie theaters for trying to increase revenues... but they're missing out on one revenue opportunity and annoying us with another.  How about switching?

Mena (Mee-na?  Meh-na?) posted about great customer service and I agree that excellence should be rewarded.  (And perhaps I'll write a Time Warner Broadband bashing post at some point as well, too.)  My best customer service experience, by far, has been with Factset.  Factset is an online financial data provider used by many large institutions to get stock prices, income statistics, etc.  Sure, we do pay a lot for the service, but there are a lot of services that we pay heavily for that don't have the kind of support that Factset does.  Many times, I've relied on representatives from Factset to follow up on problems, and while they can't always answer a question right away, they'll always get back to me that day with a status update.  The most impressive work came from another service rep there who was guiding me through a process to build some customized groups of companies.  The work was very tedious and after he showed me how to do one group, he offered to actually do the work for me!  I must have had 21 customized groups of 10-15 companies each... easily would have taken me about 2-3 hours to do and he had it done by the end of the day.  I'm sure he was able to do it faster, but still.  Once I e-mailed him an Excel file of how I wanted the groups set up, he did all of the necessary work on Factset.  I nearly fell off my chair when he offered.  I've got to believe that with service like that, their retention rate is extremely high.

The snow is from yesterday, but the picture is from today because I left my camera at work.   I couldn't find enough snow to write a goofy snow tagline, so I resorted to writing in curbside residuals.  I can't wait until this weekend's blizzard.  I feel like I'm the Marty Stouffer of snow.

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Imood has a chart of what moods people have recently selected....

At this moment, TIRED and SICK are the top two choices.  That's awful.  HAPPY is number three, followed by BORED.   What's going on?  Winter getting people down?

I just signed up...  I think it will be interesting to track my moods over time.

I'm sorry, but I think this is hilarious.  :)  Now I hope it snows all the time!

I wrote this on the car parked behind me after I got a spot on the right side... yet again.  Its quite a streak I'm on. 

Back to the Gita again, which I’m still reading… I’m a terribly inconsistent reader. I pick up a book for like three pages at a time, in between two stops on the 6 train or for ten minutes right before bed. I think the only book I’ve ever really been hooked on to the point where I’d sit and read for hours on end was the Fountainhead.

Ok, so I’m sitting in DTUT at the moment and I can’t help but be distracted by one “open mike night” performer. I’m not sure if I can really explain the kind of… well… it’s a bit like a car accident. I don’t really want to keep looking, but I’m inexplicably drawn to it. This froggy looking dude has a deathgrip on his guitar and he’s bouncing back and forth between grindspitting his words through his mouth and lightly whispering. The material is touching a wide variety of areas, from violence to corporations. Its very uncomfortable to watch. The girl who runs it doesn’t seem like she’s exactly sure to take this, but I’m sure she’s hoping he doesn’t attempt to just go on forever. I wonder what would happen if he just continued singing this chopping corporate song all night. I’m pretty sure there are no bouncers at DTUT. Now the next guy is up, singing about “Maggots in the Eye of Love.” Oh brother. What ever happened to fuzzy pink bunnies?

Anyway… the Gita. The Bhagavhad Gita talks about two forces in your lives: “the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past.” I agree with that and I’ll take it one step further by putting forth a derivative of that idea: We spend every moment of our lives either making more of ourselves or bringing ourselves down. What did you do today? Did you become something more by taking part in today, or are you less than you were for having experienced it?

DTUT ran out of green tea… in both of the brands that they carry. I didn’t know what else to choose. I picked oolong. Its garbage. I am a creature of habit, but my habits are thoughtfully chosen and they make me happy.

This is the fifth verse of the sixth chapter:

“Reshape yourself through the power of your will; never let yourself be degraded by self-will. The will is the only friend of the Self, and the will is the only enemy of the Self.”

Basically, your life is what you make of it. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea that the major influences on the outcome of my life were beyond my control. I believe in our ability to “reshape” ourselves out of sheer force of will. Without the ability to impact our lives in meaningful ways—for our own will to be the most meaningful influence in our lives, then we are just adrift. I don’t like the idea of being adrift.

Bob Lutz is now a blogger, and to celebrate my GM design pride, I'm posting my wheels proudly on my blog.  :)   

Now if I could only afford to keep the car AND buy a one bedroom apartment in the city.  The car was well priced... the apartments... not so much.  :(

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Ok, so anyone who has ever been to DTUT and tried to connect to their free wireless has probably undergone the same issues, especially if you are set to automatically obtain an IP address when you connect. 

However, this random guy clued me in to how to fix it and I've been connect all night, busy working hard on my new Success Blogging site.  You have to set your network connection to connect to a specific IP address...   

Go to your Internet Protocal (TCP/IP) properties...

Instead of "Obtain an IP address automatically" click both options to use specific addresses. 

Type in the following:

IP Address:  198_168_1_xxx     Instead of xxx, I used 156, but you can't all use the same one, so try 155, 157, 158 or something.

Subnet mask:   255_255 _255_0     Why do they call this a mask?  No idea, but this pops up automatically for me.

Default gateway: 192_168_1_254

DNS info:

Preferred DNS server:  151_202_0_84    

Alternate DNS server:    151_203_0_84

Hopefully, this works for you.  Now you don't have to bother the cool counter people, like the kid with "C A $ H" tattooed on his fist.  I'm sure they could use one or two less moochers asking them to reset the connection.  Leave them alone and buy a brownie.

I snapped this in the morning...

You know what's awesome about snow?

No alternate side.

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Perhaps I should start my Christmas shopping now.

I was a little overzealous with the plastic utensils at lunch today, causing my fork to break and slice my finger. 

Now we have to reset that sign:

General Motors Asset Management:  0  days without an onsite injury.

This isn't my car.  My car didn't have snow on it because I had just used it, so I scraped this into the car in front of me.  :)

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Link: CNN.com - Marine sacrifices finger to save wedding ring - Dec 12, 2004.

I can't believe this story...  this guy chooses losing a finger so they can save his wedding ring, and then the doctors go and LOSE THE RING!!

If I were him, I'd make sure I gave the doctor the finger after that.

I support the interesting.  I also support the thoughtful, and those who challenge others as much as they challenge themselves.  I couldn't really care less what color, shape, gender, sexual persuasion, etc., etc., etc. that they come in.  Therefore, I'm tracking back and linking to this post.  I could have just left a comment, but I feel like if you're really going to be supportive of someone, you'll publicly identify with someone.  So, this post is my really boring straight guy attempt at support for this really fascinating woman.

Link: woot_detail.

You know... when I was young, we had to pedal our own Big Wheels!   No motor!  I had to pedal six miles uphill down my street and then six miles uphill back...  and we didn't have wheels either...   just two frisbees and a brick.

Posted on the Fordham Alumni website:

"Dear Alumni,

Due to a clerical error Annemarie Germano DiCola, FCO '80 was mistakenly listed as deceased in the Fall issue of Fordham Magazine. Please know that Annemarie is alive and well, living in New York. If you would like to contact Annemarie we would be happy to forward any correspondence to her through our office. Please accept our sincere apologies for any upset or confusion this incorrect information may have caused."

Link: CNN.com - Record 'Jeopardy' run ends - Dec 1, 2004.

Well, its about time.  Now I can go back to watching Jeopardy without having to watch this goofball anymore.  I'm sure Trebeck is relieved, as well. 

Ken Jennings, your 15 minutes of fame is up. 

I'll tell you one thing.  If it was me who beat him, I definately would have been obnoxious.  I would have probably jumped up on the podium and screamed, "In your face, Kenny boy.   Wooooooooooooooooo."   Then, I would have sung a little "Sha na-na na...."

Link: Worst drivers: Teens, doctors, lawyers - Nov. 18, 2004.

This is really interesting, because if you combine the data from speeding tickets and accidents, the result is that politicians are the best drivers.  They are one of the least likely professions to get in an accident, but one of the most likely to get a speeding ticket.  Therefore, they're driving really fast, but avoiding crashes. 

They're building a 24 story hi-rise right down the street from me on 83rd and York.  They leveled 4 or 5 walkups that were abandoned when I first moved in 2001 and now they're finally starting construction.  I think these big cranes are wild.  These are the ones that climb alongside the building as it goes up.  It just looks so out of place at the end of this block before the building is visable.  Check out the big hole in the ground for the foundation, though. 

I'm in the newspaper!  (I'm not sure if that link will always work, but the article is written by Patricia Kitchen and its in today's Newsday.)

The article is about young people and their careers.  Here's my part:

"New York, especially, can be a breeding ground for a who's-in-the-lead mentality, says Charlie O'Donnell, 24, an analyst in a New York City private equity group. A graduate of Fordham University, he's set up a young alumni mentoring program there for students and finds that some are "very focused on getting a job as opposed to getting the best job for them," which would call for slowing down and doing some self-assessment.

Young people also can "pay too much attention to what they perceive as the pace around them. Others get jobs and move up and it's easy to feel like you're falling behind."

While he's no advocate of staying stuck in a going-nowhere situation, he does say there's value to finding some kind of fulfillment in the job you're in for as long as you're there. He addresses such career issues on his Web site www.findmypath.com."

Ok, how cool is that?!  The story behind it is funny.  I e-mailed her months and months ago when I was trying to generate interest in my book, and she literally just called me last Monday for this article.  She even featured the Find My Path site!  haha... wooooo   I'm going to get to work on advertising the site more now that its been featured in a major newspaper.  wooooooo